


A Matter Of Time (til our compass stands still)

by holly_violet



Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Alternate Universe - Angels & Demons, Alternate Universe - Good Omens Fusion, Alternate Universe - Historical, Ancient Egypt, Angel Simon Snow, Angst and Romance, Canon-Typical Violence, Dancing, Demon Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch, Domestic Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch/Simon Snow, Don't copy to another site, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mutual Pining, Non-Explicit Sex, Other: See Story Notes, Pining, Roman Britain, Slow Build, Stonewall Riots, The Great Exhibition, Trojan War, Vikings, Yeah a lot happens, because it takes place over 6000 years, but also like nothing happens, but also physical, but not as much as my previous fics, but you don't have to have seen/read good omens, domestic ending, it's about the yearning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-07
Updated: 2019-09-07
Packaged: 2020-10-11 13:16:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20546780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/holly_violet/pseuds/holly_violet
Summary: Simon is an angel. Baz is a demon. They work together much more often than they should.(or, snowbaz through the ages)





	A Matter Of Time (til our compass stands still)

**Author's Note:**

> catch me writing a Good Omens au without using any of the plot of Good Omens!!
> 
> so i saw a textpost (by magical-friends on tumblr) about how a Snowbaz Good Omens AU is necessary, and here it is.
> 
> if you haven't seen GO, that's fine (you should though), just know that angels and demons are all kind of non-binary, but Simon and Baz (like the main characters of GO) present as male and use he/him pronouns for almost this whole fic apart from like 2 seconds.
> 
> shoutout to thepigeonblewupthelab on tumblr for listening to me bitch and moan about this fic
> 
> title from West by Sleeping at Last.
> 
> enjoy!
> 
> (P.S. i know that the trojan war probs didn't really happen but i wanted to write in achilles and patroclus let me live)

** _the walls of eden_ **

Simon stands on the wall and looks out over the Garden, and he has so many thoughts about it that he doesn’t fully know where to put them all. 

The rising sun is glaring in his eyes, so much that he has to squint for the first time in his life. In Heaven, there isn’t so much a _ sun _as simply a constant, encircling white light coming in through all the windows (or lack thereof, since glass hasn’t technically been invented yet) which manages to be simultaneously harsh and artificial, and soft enough to make everything and everyone look smooth and perfect.

Here, there are just a few clouds in the sky for the first time ever, enough to cast the sun’s rays into vivid orange and red and violet, and it’s _ breathtaking. _

So breathtaking that Simon does not see an ink-black serpent coil itself around one very important apple tree. Distracted by the brand-new birds in the trees and the insects crawling across the fresh ground, he doesn’t see the serpent speak, he doesn’t see Eve take the first bite of the apple, he doesn’t see Adam take the second.

In fact, he doesn’t really notice any of them until said black serpent sidles up next to him, transforms into a lanky man-shaped entity with hair as ink-black as the snake’s scales and tanned skin just a little darker than Simon’s. He wobbles on his feet for a moment, possibly for the first time, and then gathers himself and stands with his shoulders back, posture proud and regal.

“Well, that all went just as I expected it to,” he says, voice entirely unaccented but somehow just as posh as his appearance and the rich black fabric he’s draped in. 

“It did?” Simon says, trying to catch on. “What did?” 

The demon raises his eyebrows at him, disbelieving.

“Original sin? The Fall of Man?” When Simon still looks blankly at him, he sighs. “You really didn’t see? What kind of angel even are you?”

“An easily distracted one. Catch me up?”

“Well, Adam and Eve were told very specifically by God not to eat the apples from the Tree of Knowledge, otherwise they would be cast out from Eden and lose their chance at eternal life.” He sounds like he’s reciting something he’s had to rote-learn, the incredulous interest from before long gone. 

“Yes, I know that. I was briefed when I landed this job.”

“Okay, so the Serpent of Eden—”

“That’s you?”

“Correct, thank you for noticing. _ I _did my job properly and tempted Eve into taking a bite of the apple, and then Adam had another bite, and now they have all this worldly knowledge and guilt and shame, so they wear clothes, and they’ve been cast out just like She said.” Simon can’t tell if the demon feels bad for them or not.

“Isn’t Eve pregnant? That’s so unfair. It isn’t safe out there!”

He shrugs. “Why are you complaining to me about this? I’m a _ demon. _You’re the holy one, why don’t you ask God what her plans are?”

Simon looks around frantically for the humans, sees them standing and shivering clad in only fig leaves just outside the walls, looking terrified and vulnerable and he just _ has _to do something. He concentrates very hard for a moment, and great white wings burst from between his shoulder blades, a sword so heavy that he almost stumbles forward materialising in his hands, flaming but not burning.

“Back in a sec,” Simon says, and the demon nods a little bewilderedly, wide-eyed, as he takes off from the wall and soars down to Adam and Eve, putting on his least threatening and most friendly smile.

“Hi there, I’m Simon. Here you go. Good luck.” Simon isn’t technically supposed to talk to them unless absolutely necessary, so he keeps it quick. He hands over the sword, warm enough to keep them alive and sharp enough to fend off anything that may try to hurt them. He receives a confused thank you, then turns and _ leaps, _propelling himself back to the wall beside the dark-haired demon and brushing off his clothes.

“You just— you just _ gave _them your sword? Won’t you get in trouble for that?”

“Maybe, but I’m a principality, my _ job _is to protect groups of people, why not start now?”

The demon smiles at him with something strange and soft in his eyes, a look Simon would never have expected to see. He mumbles something under his breath.

“What did you say?”

“Doesn’t matter. What’s your name, Angel of the Eastern Gate?”

“Simon. And what’s yours, Serpent of Eden?” Simon says, some teasing note in his voice.

“Tyrannus Basilton.”

“What, now? Tyra—”

“Baz is fine. Interesting to meet you, Simon. I’ve got to... got to report back Downstairs that my first mission is complete. Perhaps I’ll see you around Earth somewhere.” With that, Baz throws his long hair over his shoulder, and takes off, soaring away from Eden with far more grace than Simon will ever have.

Simon blinks at him a few times, then turns and walks away, trying his very best to keep Baz in a little box in his memory to be recalled someday in the future where necessary but not dwelled on.

Little did he know.

** _giza, egypt, 2560 BC_ **

“Well, _ someone’s _sticking out like a sore thumb,” says a vaguely familiar voice right beside Simon, and he jumps to attention, drawing the knife hidden in his clothes, because whoever is is is certainly not human. “Whoa there, I’m not going to mug you.”

Simon does a double-take. A memory whirrs to life at the back of his mind, from almost as long ago as he can remember.

“Wait. Hold on, I know you from somewhere.”

“From the Garden. I was the Serpent of Eden? With the silly name that you can’t remember so I’m not going to remind you? Baz?”

“Oh, _ right! _ Yeah. Sorry, I’ve been a bit preoccupied.” Baz looks relieved, smiling with all his teeth.

“Quite an aggressive response there. Why do you even have a knife on you?”

“_ Sorry. _It’s just that I’m disguised, because as you pointed out I don’t exactly blend in in Egypt. The humans’ eyes just slide right past, so it was a bit disconcerting to have someone talk to me.”

“So the humans all think I’m talking to myself? You could’ve mentioned that sooner,” Baz says with overly-dramatic disgust, snapping his fingers and making the air around him waver a little. “There. Now I’m the same. What brings you to Egypt?”

“Checking in for Upstairs. Also, because I wanted to come. I needed some sun, I’ve spent too long in Europe. And the new Pyramid seemed pretty cool.”

It really is, as Simon puts it, ‘_ pretty cool’. _In fact, that’s an understatement— the pyramid, recently completed and still unsullied by robberies or erosion due to the sands of time, shines white in the sun. It is encased by immaculately polished white limestone, capped with shining gold, and as the sun beats down it’s almost too bright to look at without squinting. It’s the biggest structure Simon has ever seen the humans build.

“Is it weird that I kind of want to run up it? Like, my brain is telling me ‘_ Simon, go on, it’ll be fun and you definitely won’t get discorporated by the guards for it’ _even though I know that’s a terrible idea.”

“No, I completely get it. They’re called intrusive thoughts.”

Simon makes an interested little ‘_ aha!’ _noise, and leans back against the warm mudbrick wall of the house he’s been sheltering in the shadow of for the past hour or so. Otherwise he would be incredibly sunburnt. His complexion really isn’t suited to the North African sun. 

“Do you want to go somewhere a bit more quiet? I’m sure something interesting has happened to you since we last met,” Simon offers, flashing a smile.

“Why not.”

The water of the Nile is far from cold, but it’s certainly pleasantly cool to sink his feet into, sitting on the grassed bank. Certain animals are alarmingly good at seeing through concealments, so Simon has to miracle away the occasional crocodile or hippo, but otherwise it’s far more peaceful than the hustle and bustle of the area around Giza.

Baz’s escapades since Eden are just as interesting as Simon expected them to be. He’s travelled all over the place wherever a civilisation has sprung up, to sow the seeds of discord and malcontentment (though from his tone Simon can deduce that said sowing is only due to Baz’s orders from Hell, and he’d really rather he didn’t have to), seen the sights, taken in the views, and then moved on to the next place. 

The way he speaks is compelling and dynamic. Looking at him, you’d think he was brooding and surly (because he’s tall and glarey and intimidating with his constant thousand-yard stares), but once he gets talking about the things he’s passionate about, it’s impossible to look away.

Simon half-heartedly asks himself whether this is a demon thing, whether Baz is trying to tempt him into something. He decides that if he _ is _being tempted, he might as well appreciate Baz’s storytelling. Also, somehow despite barely knowing Baz, he gets the feeling that he isn’t.

When Simon finally tries his hand at anecdotes (of which he has very few of interest) he isn’t really sure if Baz is listening. He’s _ looking _at Simon, certainly, but in an almost distant way, like he’s more interested in how the setting sun is shining on Simon’s bronze hair (steadily being sun-bleached with every day he spends at Giza) than what he’s actually saying. Simon can’t find it in himself to really mind, as he’d spent a fair amount of the time Baz had been speaking for doing exactly the same thing.

Night falls sooner than expected, and without the sunlight it’s still warm but it feels impossibly cold. Simon wishes he hadn’t adjusted so quickly to the heat of the day, and that he was wearing something more substantial than a linen tunic.

“Do you have somewhere to stay tonight?” he asks Baz, his voice sounding a little too loud against the quiet of the night. He looks up for a second, and the stars are a glittering band across the cloudless sky. 

“Unfortunately, Hell wants me to check in,” Baz says, rolling his eyes. “I had better leave. But it was nice to see you again, angel.” 

Baz smiles like he’s hiding something, and it makes Simon believe that maybe this isn’t true, but he’s not about to pry, so he just smiles back and watches as Baz turns and walks away.

Nowhere in what Baz said did he imply that they would see each other again. They might never cross paths. It’s a big world.

But Simon finds himself hoping that they will.

** _troy, 1270 BC_ **

The beach at Troy is covered in tents and people and weapons and shouting, and Simon is definitely going to get a sunburn. Again.

The walls of the city are smooth, insurmountably tall, and topped with archers, guarding their safe haven, and it reminds him strikingly of Eden, and of someone he hasn’t seen in over a thousand years.

Simon is dressed in the uncomfortable, bronze-and-leather armour of the Greeks, the early-morning sun beating down on his face as he sits by the river and ties up all his straps and buckles, letting the tips of his fingers brush the water every now and then, and listens to the chatter of the Greek soldiers and the women, letting the occasional bubble of laughter lift his mood.

It’s the hottest day of summer, and there is sweat dripping down Simon’s neck even though the sun has barely risen, and generally he is thoroughly uncomfortable.

Once he’s ready, he rejoins the rest of the group, blending into the army as they charge on the Trojans, running on light feet and keeping an eye out for those he’s been told to watch.

He’s not going to get killed in this war. He’s been given free rein with miracles while he’s here to keep himself, and a few notable others, free from harm, and make the result of the war what Heaven wants it to be. 

They’ve been at it for ten years. Ten years of fighting over Helen, who Simon imagines feels rather _ used— _ she was kidnapped (or left of her own free will, sources vary) and the men in her life used it as an excuse to get more land and power. Ten years of death, and infighting, and the odd plague. And now, without their best fighter, the Greeks are _ losing. _The Trojans are getting closer and closer to the ships every day, and several of the Greek commanders are too injured to fight.

Simon is terribly lonely, if he’s being honest. 

Maybe it’s just that he’s spent the last millennium watching the humans he’s liked _ age and die _, without really seeing any other angels or demons, and without seeing Baz. It’s startling how much he’s missed him, even though he can count the number of times they’ve met on one hand— he is fascinating to spend time with, if a little confusing and hard to read, and he’s let himself get attached, since Baz isn’t going anywhere.

It’s also possibly his surroundings. Angels can feel the love in the air, literally, and Simon has never felt it in such a concentrated, intense way than when he’s anywhere near Achilles and Patroclus. Sometimes he actually has to brace himself, when he looks over the army and sees golden-blonde waves and brown curls, heads pressed close in quiet, conspiratorial conversations. Now, when he sees how Achilles refuses to fight, only speaks to Patroclus, he lets a little angelic peace flow through to him, hopes Patroclus has patience enough to stay with him. He suspects that Patroclus is one of the very few things tying Achilles to humanity. Simon doesn’t know if Achilles is really part-god, but he certainly fights like it.

Simon thinks on this as he fights, absently, never killing a Trojan, simply disarming them or efficiently slipping away, drifting across the battlefield. Every so often, he’ll come across someone who gives him a bit of trouble, and he’ll have to focus or use a miracle to get away unscathed and without blood on his hands, but he’s never really come close to being discorporated.

Until now, because whoever _ this _ guy is, he’s _ good. _Simon’s excellent with a sword, but his opponent is matching him with every blow, cutting close to the gaps in his armour with expert precision. He’s wiry and tall, not as strong as Simon but certainly faster, and miracles don’t seem to be distracting him like they should. 

Simon squints, focuses on his eyes, his long eyelashes and dark hair spilling from under his helmet, and the curve of his mouth, and _ of course. _

“Wait. Baz?”

“Simon?” He freezes, and groans. “Agh, I thought I’d actually met a human who was a _ challenge! _”

“Yes, hello to you too,” Simon grumbles. “Do you want to go somewhere else?” They’re shouting over the clamour of battle. Baz nods, and Simon snaps his fingers, and they’re on a secluded cove, where the sea looks so vivid and clear that it’s blinding. 

“What are you doing here? Wouldn't have thought a war over a woman was really an angel’s scene.”

“I’m just following orders. I was supposed to be keeping the peace in the Greek camp, but—”

“Well, you failed _ that _miserably.”

“I’m aware, yeah. What about you?”

“The opposite. Creating chaos for the Trojans, and also helping them along a bit.”

“So we’re both working very hard in this stupid hot place, and cancelling each other out?”

Baz scrunches his eyebrows for a second (which Simon observes is objectively very cute and the least threatening thing he’s ever seen a demon do, not that he has a wide range of experience with demons doing cute things, it’s really just Baz) and sighs. 

“I suppose we are, aren’t we. We could probably just step out, if you’d like. Sit on the beach, get a tan, supervise the humans from a distance.”

Simon looks outraged. “What—_ no! _We’d get in trouble with our people, they’d find out!”

“Not if we tell them we’re both doing our jobs, do one or two ethereal or occult acts every now and then. They wouldn’t even know. Go _ on, _ we can spear-fish and have some nice food instead of spearing _ people _.”

“_You’re spearing_ _people?!_ You’re really not making me want to hang out with you—”

“Oh, come on, it’ll be fun. Please?”

“Only because you said please.” Baz smiles, pleased with himself. “Begging isn’t very becoming of a demon, is it?”

“Only for you, angel,” Baz says with a wink, and he’s definitely joking but Simon still blushes, red enough that he can pass it off as the sunburn he’d anticipated getting, and which it hadn’t occurred to him to miracle away. 

They walk down the length of the beach which isn’t occupied by the Greeks, catching each other up on the goings-on of each other’s lives. In the span of three days, they managed to cover almost everything, but their nice holiday from their jobs was interrupted rather abruptly.

“Hold on,” Simon says, pressing a hand to Baz’s chest to stop him talking. “Is that Achilles? Is he fighting again?” He points out a man, wearing the armour every soldier would recognise in an instant.

Baz squints at the man, the distance even straining Baz’s supernaturally precise eyesight, and then blanches. “No. It isn’t. He has brown hair, and he’s a little too tall. That’s not Achilles, that’s—”

“Patroclus? _ No. _Surely he wouldn’t— he wouldn’t make him do that.”

“I suppose he must have. _ Damn _ Achilles’ pride! He wouldn’t even go out himself to save his entire army, he had to send his boyfriend, who is a _ good _fighter but nowhere near as excellent as some of the others, to pretend to be him?”

“Oh, this isn’t going to end well. Come on, let’s go, I can’t watch this.” 

Simon tugs Baz in the other direction, walking beyond a boulder which keeps the battlefield out of sight, and just starts talking and talking, trying to keep both of their minds from the impending, inevitable tragedy for a solid two hours, until Baz freezes and presses his fingers to his temples, shoulders managing to simultaneously slouch and tense painfully.

“What? Oh, God, what happened?”

“You know,” Baz says through his teeth, “how you said you can feel love here so concentrated it hurts? Yeah, this— this is the opposite of that, oh holy _ shit _—”

“Is it anger? Or pain, or—”

“_ Grief. _The worst I’ve ever felt.” Simon’s face falls in his understanding, and he lets Baz slump against him without a second thought, wrapping him in his arms and sinking to the ground, back against a rock. His skin has turned grey from pain, and he’s pressed his face into Simon’s neck, forehead against his pulse point. His whole body is shaking, and Simon knows how he feels. Emotions that aren’t yours rushing through you, with nothing you can do to stop them.

Over the space of an hour of clinging to Simon for dear life and silent tears and biting through his lower lip, Baz finds the strength to speak.

“Patroclus is dead,” he says weakly, and Simon’s face crumples even further, “And the moment Achilles found out, _ this _happened.”

“The funny thing is, though, that I can still feel their love in every molecule of my body.” They both must look an absolute wreck. “I think I knew this was going to happen, but that doesn’t make it any easier. I’ve been keeping an eye on them for ten years, and I never would’ve thought that Achilles would let him sacrifice himself.”

Baz doesn’t respond, too exhausted with everything to form words.

It’s not long after that, that Achilles kills Hector and then Paris kills Achilles, and Patroclus and Achilles’ ashes are buried together with only one name marked on the grave.

Both Simon and Baz do their utmost to make one of the Greeks add Patroclus’ name. Baz justifies it to his superiors by saying it’s simply a selfish act, because since Patroclus hasn’t joined Achilles wherever they went after they died (Hellenic polytheism is complicated) he’s still wracked with grief whenever he steps near the site where the ashes are buried.

They never do, though. The Greek army sacks Troy and burns it to the ground, and sails away back home, and they don’t add Patroclus’ name, and somehow it feels too important to simply let go.

Simon gets a message from Heaven telling him to get on with it and leave Troy. He doesn’t leave, because Baz is still there.

They decide between them that it wouldn’t be inherently bad or entirely good for _ them _ to add the name. They lay the breadcrumbs of a story for the humans to build on themselves, about who _ they _ can think did it, and then carve the name into the sand-roughened marble, and for the first time in weeks, Baz can fully inhale and exhale.

“Baz, uh,” Simon starts in the quiet as they look over the water and the grave one last time, “Don’t be a stranger, okay? These last few weeks have been— well, not _ nice, _but better since you’re here.”

“Perhaps I could seek you out more often. You’re the only one who’s always going to be around, anyway.”

Simon smiles, for the first time in weeks, and his sunburnt cheeks ache with it. Baz saying that while standing by the grave of two people they’d both come to care about immensely made everything a little melancholy, but nevertheless, it’s nice to know that he has someone he can go to.

He looks at the inscription in the grave, and lets happiness creep back in.

** _west midlands, england, 61 AD_ **

As he runs as fast as he can from the Celtic army, Baz probably should be focusing on getting away, rather than about how uncomfortable his clothes are, and how he’d really rather be discorporated in a more fashionable cloak.

They had caught sight of him as he ran away from a group of Romans they had been fighting with, and started actively pursuing him.

He supposes being a demon might make humans more keen to fight with him. Or they were just riled up and righteously angry with the Romans for taking their land, and Baz had been the nearest enemy.

The reason doesn’t matter, because Baz didn’t have time to blend into the rest of the crowd or disguise himself, and now he might be spending the last few minutes in this corporation thoroughly uncomfortable.

Baz isn’t unfit— in fact, he’d done rather well running long-distance back in Ancient Greece— but he’s out of practice and it’s so cold that his lungs are burning, and the Celts are fired-up and know their way around the town much better than he does. He finds himself cornered in an alleyway, with ten highly-muscled people with swords surrounding him.

“_ Heeeyyy, _guys, ladies,” Baz says in Latin, nodding to a red-headed woman who looks just as broad and strong as the men next to her, “I think there’s been a misunderstanding.” 

It takes a moment before he realises they don’t understand him— they speak Gaelic, and that just happens to be one of the languages Baz does _ not _speak. Somewhere in his consciousness, he makes a mental note to learn it, in future.

The Celts say something to each other, and Baz tries to gesture in some way that he isn’t actually a Roman. He makes the mistake of signing the word ‘_ no’ _by miming drawing a finger across his throat, and the man closest to him shrugs and presses his sword against the line he drew in the air.

Baz breathes out heavily, shuts his eyes, tips his head back against the wall so that the cut will be cleaner and quicker, and thinks ‘_ the paperwork on this is going to be a nightmare’ _as the man starts to push down, but he barely draws blood before someone new pushes through the crowd, and Baz feels the blade jerk away from him. 

He opens one eye, to see what is drawing this out, and sees an all-too-familiar face.

“Simon!” Baz says, tone disbelieving. He sees a number of emotions flicker over Simon’s face, before he settles on vague relief or frustration. Baz can’t quite tell.

“It’s alright, lads, he’s with me,” Simon declares, then flicks himself in the temple and repeats it in Gaelic, and drags Baz into a house, cheeks pink with the cold. “What the hell were you doing? Why were they attacking you?“

“I was with the Romans! Apparently Hell really likes colonialism, so they sent me to give them a hand, and I suppose the Celts saw me before I could disguise myself, and now here we are.”

“Honestly! Don’t your lot know that there’s an uprising going on right now? You could’ve been killed!”

“Discorporated, not killed. I suppose I should say thank you for saving me?”

“Better not, if Downstairs is keeping an eye on you here.”

“I can say it’s nice to see you, though, it’s been a while. Though I wish the circumstances were better,” Baz says, and his hands are still shaking a little.

“Are you alright? Did they hurt you?”

“No, just that lovely human-form thing called adrenaline. Do you want to get a drink or something?”

\--

The beer and mead that was available in the pub in town was stronger than anticipated.

Simon also had a lot more emotions than anticipated. Coming from an angel and alcohol-heightened, they were making some of the other people near them a little loopy.

“Y’know what makes me _ so sad _,” he says, blearily.

“What?” Baz replies, more coherently.

“The goddamn— the fuckin’ Library of Alexander—Alexandra—whatever the fuck.” He gets sweary when he’s drunk, as well as ruddy-cheeked and loud.

“Don’t remind me! You don’t even _ read, _angel, I slept for a year after that happened.”

“Why’d you go to sleep?”

“Sad?”

“Ooooh, right, yeah. Julius fuckin’ Caesar, man, what a dick.”

“I’ll drink to that!” Baz clinks his cup against Simon’s and chugs it, wincing at the taste afterwards. “This is disgusting. I miss _ wine. _Why don’t they have wine at this place?”

“I don’t know, maybe they think it’s too Roman or somethin’.”

“Wine isn’t even a Roman thing? They made it in Iran first. Or maybe Georgia. I don’t remember.”

“How do you remember all that shit? I can’t remember what I had for lunch last week.”

“You remembered _ me, _from Eden, after like two thousand years.”

“Well, yeah, but you’re _ you, _you know?”

Baz frowns. “No, I don’t know.”

Simon fumbles for the words for a second. “It’s almost like… I guess I knew then somehow that you’d be important to me. So I just remembered. And I was right. You _ are _important to me. Even if you’re a smartass and a dick, sometimes.”

“Oh.” Baz doesn’t really know what to do with that. He thinks hard for a moment, then softens. “Cool.”

Simon smiles at him too gently for a moment, rosy cheeks making his eyes look even more blue, and Baz is hit with something joyful which makes his throat close up for a second and his eyes smart, like undiluted sunlight, and then it’s gone and Simon is rambling about how cold and damp England always seems to be, and the moment passes.

Baz looks down at his hands and blinks away the tears that gathered in his eyes. They weren’t tears of sadness, or pain, but he can’t really put a finger on what it _ was. _

He takes another swig of his drink (still disgusting) and slumps back into his chair, suddenly too sober, and tries to force his body (which suddenly feels overcharged, like he has a lot of energy and nowhere to put it) to still. This is going to be a long night.

** _norway, 1024 AD_ **

He didn’t even know how the fight started.

One moment, Simon had been drinking rather poor beer in a tavern, the next he’d made eye contact with a terrifying beast of a drunk man and he was being beaten half to death (well, discorporation, but death has a nicer ring to it) for apparently offending him in some way he doesn’t understand.

These Norse customs are rather confusing, and as an angel he probably shouldn’t endorse their religious system (as much as he likes it a lot), but he can’t help but appreciate their goddess Freya. Having one deity represent love, sex, fertility, gold and war is impressive. 

Anyway, it didn’t matter to the bearded Dane that Simon didn’t know he had offended him. He had simply walked over and started punching him square in the jaw and the solar plexus and the chest, and he had heard a nasty _ crack _from his ribs which hurts whenever he takes a step, as he drags himself out of the door and into the cold.

His cloak is furry and warm, but his hair is damp and his clothes are soaked through from tripping over in the snow a little earlier (the primary reason for even going into the tavern). The chill of the Scandinavian nighttime sets in very quickly, and Simon probably doesn’t have the energy to miracle himself dry, never mind getting himself someplace to stay.

The walk from the tavern to the inn is insurmountably long, and the path is uneven and primitive, and Simon doesn’t think he can make it.

When he falls into a ditch at the side of the road, unsteady from taking several hits to the head, he doesn’t feel like getting up again, so he doesn’t.

Discorporation would be rather a pain in the neck. The paperwork, and the liaison with the archangels, and he would have to get used to a new body which would look different to his current one (which he’s become rather fond of, over the years). He isn’t exactly sure how much exposure to the cold will kill a human, but he knows it’s not a quick death. However, if someone doesn’t find him before morning, it might be too late.

He would be gone from Earth for possibly a century if the paperwork goes slowly, at the very _ least _a couple of decades.

_ Bureaucracy is the real hell, _ Simon thinks dazedly, _ though Baz would probably contest that. _

Oh. Baz.

Simon’s relationship with Baz is _ weird. _They probably shouldn’t be friends, because they’re an angel and a demon, but then again they were never really enemies, right from the start. They respect each other. Baz has been a familiar face over his long life, one of the few people he actually likes who has been a consistent presence on Earth. They tend to run into each other at least once every couple of decades nowadays, and he would have no way of letting Baz know that he had been discorporated.

He isn’t sure if Baz would be worried, or simply inconvenienced. Would he be sad, if he learned?

Simon lets his mind ruminate on that for five minutes or so as the cold sets in properly. He’s shivering violently, his fingertips and feet numb from the cold as he stares up into the starry night sky, free of clouds.

_ I would miss him, if I had to deal with the other angels for decades while trying to get a new body, _ Simon realises. _ He’s good company. I like him a lot. I think he would miss me, too. Do I have any friends? Is he my best friend by default? _

On that thought, a dark-haired face pops into his view from the road, peering down into the ditch.

“Simon? What the he—_ heaven _ are you doing down there?” Speak of the Devil.

“Got beaten up. I’ll be okay.”

“No, you _ won’t, _ you’ll get hypothermia and be discorporated, and wouldn’t that be a pain for both of us? Come on,” Baz says, offering a hand, and Simon takes it but can’t pull himself up. “Do I seriously have to lift you? _ ” _

“Uh, if you don’t mind? I did tell you I got beaten up and then fell into a ditch?” Simon says, wincing as he tries to sit up and holds his ribs.

“Fine.” Baz, with his demonic strength, leans down and scoops him up bridal style, with a heave lifting him out of the ditch and then letting Simon wrap an arm around his waist for stability once they’re standing beside each other.

“Where are we going?” Simon says, teeth chattering as he hobbles along, sucking in sharp breaths through his teeth whenever he jolts his rib.

“I have a house about a quarter of a mile from here.”

“Ah, my _ saviour!” _Simon brings a hand to his forehead and pretends to faint like a maiden, wincing as he moves his arm a little too dramatically. “Ow.”

“Stop moving your arms, idiot, focus on walking.”

In about ten minutes, they make it to a smallish house with solid wooden poles lining the walls, supporting the snow-covered roof. Baz kicks open the stiff door, and a rush of warm air hits Simon from the fireplace which immediately starts settling into his freezing skin.

“Sit down, I’ll boil some water.” Baz busies himself with a kettle over the fire, and Simon sits down on a bench covered in thick furs. “What even happened to you? How does an _ angel _get into a fight?”

“If I knew what happened, I’d tell you. The Norse are so _ aggressive. _”

“No more aggressive than Charlemagne was, and your people upstairs _ loved _him. Don’t you remember Verden?” Baz says, scooping honey into a horn mug, pouring hot water over it and handing it to Simon. “Don’t drink this too fast.”

“Thank y—”

“_ Don’t _thank me,” Baz hisses, too loudly and too suddenly. He places his hands on Simon’s chest, pulling his shirt up. Simon flinches almost imperceptibly at the contact he isn’t used to.

“What are you doing, now?”

“Healing you. This is going to hurt,” Baz says, and _ pushes, _and Simon cries out when a stab of pain jolts through him, but the pain subsides in just a few moments and he feels a red-hot wave of relief flood over him, the way he knows Baz’s demonic miracles feel in his chest. As soon as Baz sees the change in Simon’s face, he pulls his hands away like he’s been burned.

He very well _ might _have been. Touching Baz doesn’t hurt Simon, but holy water and consecrated ground burns Baz, and Simon is the holiest thing around. Simon makes a mental note to ask him, at some point in the future.

“How did you know where to find me? Or that I was even here?”

“Maybe I’ve got some kind of ‘_ my angel is in trouble’ _sixth sense. Lucky for you.”

“Since when am I _ your _angel?” 

Baz goes bright red, as if he didn’t realise his own phrasing, and runs a self-conscious hand over his cheekbone. “That’s what you’re picking out of that descriptor? I practically called you useless and overly dependent on my help.”

“Yeah, well, we all know _ that’s _ true. But, _ aww, _you care about me—”

“Shut _ up. _Now, come on, I don’t want to draw attention to me helping an angel by using any more miracles to fix your cuts and bruises. I’ll just clean them up.”

“Is that why you’re doing this by hand? Or do you just want to make extra sure that _ your angel _is alright?” Simon knows he’s pushing it, by teasing. Baz could throw him out into the snow and let him die of exposure anyway. Somehow, though, he doesn’t think he ever would.

“Simon, I swear to Satan, I will—”

“Okay, sorry, sorry, shutting up now!” Simon says, suppressing a chuckle. He sits still, holding his breath as much as possible as Baz dabs at the cuts on his jaw and cheekbone with a washcloth. “Why won’t you let me thank you for this? Or anything else?” Baz goes silent and still for a moment before continuing with his small, precise motions.

“Don’t talk. Keep your face still.”

“No, really, Baz. _ Thank you _for doing this.” Baz’s hands start shaking, pulling away from Simon completely in a frantic, jolting motion that Simon has never seen in Baz’s ever-so-graceful limbs.

“Don’t say that, Simon, I’ve told you.”

“You’ve never told me _ why, _ though. You do so much for me, but you refuse to let me thank you. Can you _ please _tell me?”

Baz sighs so deeply that it could move mountains.

“Because you’re an angel, and I’m a demon, and I have this— this stupid, paranoid fear that Upstairs is going to find out that I help you, and if you say things like that, if you implicate yourself, that you’ll Fall.”

“Baz, I wouldn’t. Honestly. Isn’t loving a demon, caring about one, the ultimate act of divine goodness, if you think about it?”

“Sure, the two of us can think about it that way,” Baz replies quickly, breezing past the word ‘loving,’ which Simon is rather grateful for, since he didn’t really think about the implications. “But I somehow think Gabriel won’t see it like that. And I just— if you Fell because of me, I don’t think I could ever forgive myself.” Baz’s voice is almost fragile, and Simon can’t bear to hear it.

“It wouldn’t be your fault.”

“Yes, it would.”

“If you really think that, then I would forgive you,” Simon says, and Baz makes a noise of anguish. He starts pacing up and down the little house’s limited floor space. “What _ now?” _

“That’s _ worse! _ I’m unforgivable, that’s the whole point, She will never forgive me just because I asked questions and—”

“Oh, fuck Her, you didn’t deserve any of the bullshit they put you through because you’re my best friend and you do so much good and you’re better than _ any _of them, in Heaven or Hell.” 

Simon can’t stop _ talking, _ mind flooded with images of dark hair and patches of brilliant gold, and a sword pressed to an all-to-familiar chest and his throat feels hoarse with screams he can’t remember making, and begging someone for justice and _ take me instead, _and—

“Simon, _ shit, _stop talking like that, She’ll hear—”

“Let her. Actually, I _ hope _she does. Let her realise that it should’ve been me that Fell, instead of you,” Simon says, trailing off towards the end as if he doesn’t quite know what he’s saying. His eyes widen, and he falls silent, pressing his fingers to his temple. 

“Hold on. What did you just say?” Baz says, dangerously quiet and grave.

“I don’t— I actually don’t know. I think some memories— I think I’m missing some memories from before the Fall, and they just— just came back for a second or something. Memories of you. Of us. Before.” Simon pauses, deathly pale. “Do you remember anything from heaven?” 

They’ve never broached this subject, not in thousands of years of steadily developing trust which has suddenly culminated in this one seemingly normal evening.

“No. I forgot when I Fell. I suppose _ your _ memories weren’t wiped entirely, just suppressed. Maybe you can access them under certain circumstances. Can I ask what you saw?” Baz speaks carefully, censoring himself with every word. Simon hasn’t heard him speak like this since before Troy, since they started being honest with each other. 

“Are you sure?” _ Won’t it hurt you, to hear this? _

“Yes. _ Please. _”

So Simon tells him _ everything, _ and it comes flooding back _ . _ Tells him how Baz— well, he wasn’t Baz then, he would have been named something else, but speaking that name wouldn’t go down well— had patches of gold in his eyes, now completely dark grey as the sky just before the rain starts to pour. How they had meant something to each other. How that was forbidden for _ some reason _ (and Simon wants to cry from frustration when he can’t remember _ why and how) _ and Baz had taken the heat for it, since Simon was a principality and Baz just a regular garden-variety angel. How Baz had Fallen, and Simon had begged someone ( _ he doesn’t know who) _ to bring him back, to let him take the punishment, saying that they won’t ever see each other again if it means Baz can come back. How someone had waved their hands and taken his memories, and that was that, and now for some reason he _ remembered. _

Baz is silent for a long time.

“So we were— we were friends in Heaven, and I said some things and they caught us, so they cast me out? All this time, I thought it was just the questions. That doesn’t make any sense, why would they—”

“I think we were maybe more than friends.” Baz chokes out a strangled _ oh, _and sits down with a thump, gracelessly, throwing his legs over the arm of the chair, like he’s mentally trapped between wanting to be away from Simon and wanting to stay close to him, to follow every expression. “Do you want me to go? This is probably a lot to process.” Simon’s hands are shaking, and Baz looks like he’s not much better off.

“Where would you even go? You’re hurt and it’s freezing.”

“I would find somewhere, if you want to be alone.”

“Please stay.” Baz sounds more vulnerable than Simon has ever heard. “How am I supposed to let you go, after what we’ve both just learned?”

Simon’s breath catches. He nods, letting himself slump down across the seat, laying his head down by Baz’s legs, golden hair mussed into a frizzy ball thanks to his nervous hands running through it. Baz moves his hand, lets hesitant, fine-boned musician’s fingers thread through his hair, unmoving. Simon looks up at him and smiles gently, garnering a warm look from Baz and the slow, comforting drag of his fingers through his hair.

Simon takes a deep breath, closes his eyes, and tries his best to project whatever peace he has within him to Baz. After all, you should share good things with the people you care about.

** _paris, france, 1791 AD_ **

Simon isn’t really sure why he’s here.

Sure, the food was nice, laid out on long tables in pretty ways, with all the posh spices that whoever was holding this party could afford. The people seemed to be decent, too, if excessively rich, and he gets to wear some nice clothes and watch as the women sweep across the dancefloor to their partners.

Rather a lot of the eligible bachelorettes have approached _ him, _ too, and to be honest, it has been a bit difficult to turn them down. After all, he is tall and friendly and handsome, and apparently alone, and what is he supposed to tell them? ‘ _ Sorry, miss, I’m a several-thousand-year-old entity, as much as I would love to dance with (and presumably get engaged to) you _.’ 

He kind of wishes he had someone to dance with. Not that he’s any good at dancing, no matter how much he’s tried over the centuries, but standing at the side of the room alone drinking wine isn’t exactly _ fun. _

Simon’s supposed to be influencing the partygoers into virtuous behaviour, but there’s not much he can do when they are all so absorbed in themselves and getting drunk and finding a partner. Out of the corner of his eye, Simon spots a teenage girl, no older than 14, trying to sneak into the party with a gaggle of friends. He _ should _ step in to stop them, but he kind of doesn’t want to. Why _ shouldn’t _they have their fun? He resolves to simply keep an eye on them for the evening and make sure they don’t go anywhere near the alcohol with one or two miracles, deciding that that’s enough virtuous influence for the night. 

_ Baz will be proud of me for slacking off, _ he thinks, _ maybe I’ll tell him in my next letter. _

Just as he’s about to step outside and make a quick exit, yet another woman practically _ sashays _ towards him. She is remarkably beautiful, more so than anyone he’s seen tonight, and her dress is a dark, rich red and so low-cut that it’s almost indecent. Her pitch-black hair is tied up in a great elaborate pile on top of her head, making her cheekbones and big, grey eyes striking, and oh, _ Lord, _it’s going to be hard to turn her down.

“Bonsoir, monsieur,” she says, in a vaguely familiar and almost joking voice, “M'accordez-vous cette danse?”

Simon sighs. His French is very bad. “Uh, pardon, mademoiselle, I’m, uh, not—”

“Simon, it’s _ me.” _ She cuts him off in English, impatient. “Basilton? _ Your _demon?” 

“Oh, _ Baz!” _ he says, pleasantly surprised and practically overjoyed that he (she?) is here, in a way that he doesn’t want to think too hard about. “You’ve changed form?” Baz groans.

“Only temporarily, and to no avail. I’m supposed to be tempting a duke into adultery, but he is far more loyal to his wife than I anticipated, so that was an embarrassing failure.”

“His wife must be _ incredible, _ then, if he turned _ you _down.” Simon says, only realising the implications a little too late. Baz raises their eyebrow.

“Is that a compliment I hear, Simon? Do elaborate.”

“Well, you know, you’re… _ you, _and you’ve got the cheekbones and the eyelashes and the—” Simon gestures vaguely to Baz’s chest. 

“Thank you? I think?” Baz rearranges their skirts, looking decidedly uncomfortable. “I’m ditching the dress and the breasts as soon as physically possible. I haven’t been able to dance all evening, because the men here are all so bloody _ respectable _ and _ proper _ and I think they all think I’m a courtesan, not that there’s anything wrong with being a courtesan in _ my _book if that’s what one chooses, but all the men don’t seem to agree at all, and— sorry, I’m rambling, aren’t I.”

Simon swallows. “Well, I don’t think you’re a courtesan. I’m not much of a dancer, but—” Simon holds out a hand. “Shall we?”

Baz smiles at Simon like they’re a little bit confused by him, but takes his hand, and they step into the centre of the room. Simon is already slightly terrified by the mass of people, but luckily this particular dance is one in which you stay with your partner, so he can just keep his eyes on Baz and their hand in his.

“Why are you here?” Baz says quietly after a while, “Influencing the people toward light?”

“Yeah. Not much success. I’ve done literally one thing all night.”

“Ugh, I’m in the same boat. People here are so determined to be average. I suppose we just cancelled each other out, too.”

“D’you reckon we can just leave after this? Go for a walk in the gardens, or something? If we’re just going to neutralise each other’s work?” Simon says, and Baz smiles conspiratorially, spinning gracefully with a flourish.

“Shirking your duties to go off with a demon? And you _ do _know what people are really doing when they ‘go for a walk in the gardens’, right?”

“No, that’s— that’s not what I meant. And Upstairs won’t notice. I’m hardly even on their radar, y’know. They really don’t care.” The music ends, and the dancers clap for the string quartet. “Do you want to go?”

“Don’t see why not. Can we find somewhere private so I can change first, though?”

The two of them ducked out of the hall when a group of giggling girls moved away from the doors, and Baz stepped into an empty hallway out of sight of the party and snapped their fingers, transforming his dress into a smart black waistcoat and trousers. His hair is still long, but he’s slicked it back, showing his dramatic widow’s peak. He shakes his arms, shoots his cuffs.

“_ How _do women do it? Those dresses are physically painful. I expect I’ll be receiving a commendation from Hell for them any day now.”

“Wait, those corsets were _ you? _” 

“No, that was all humans, but I’ll take the credit if I’m offered it. Actually, I think it was Catherine de Medici who made them popular, back in the 1550s. Remember her?”

“How could I forget? Did you get a _ commendation _for the Medicis, too?”

“No, but I damn well should’ve. All those families; the Medicis, the Borgias… I had a hand in rather a lot of their business.” Baz says, and loops his arm through Simon’s to let his hand rest on his forearm. 

“To the gardens, then?”

The night air is chilly and sweet-smelling, like the roses they’re walking through and the heady perfume of the women inside, and the food inside. The moon is full, and the sky is clear and full of stars.

Baz rubs his arms with his free hand, huffing out a breath and stopping in his tracks, near an ornate bench at the side of the path. “It’s _ cold. _”

“Miracle yourself hotter, then,” Simon says absently, turning to face him and taking a step back.

“I’m trying to cut down on the frivolous miracles. Come back, you’re warm.” Simon moves back beside him obediently, and instead of linking their arms together, he wraps an arm around Baz’s waist and pulls him closer. He feels Baz stiffen for a moment, then relax into the touch.

Even through the years in Ancient Greece and Rome when physical contact between men (or in their case, usually-men-shaped entities) was relatively commonplace, they had usually kept each other at arm’s length, except on the rare occasions where one of them desperately required comfort. Simon had always done it subconsciously, never sure if too much contact would somehow burn either of them, or set off alarm bells in Heaven or Hell, or open up a rift, or something.

But this is _ nice. _Walking and chatting with Baz is the most familiar and consistent thing in Simon’s entire five-and-a-half-thousand years on Earth, but now Baz’s fingers are clutching at his arm like he never wants to let go and it’s so new.

Simon thinks he probably shouldn’t be overanalyzing this. Walking arm-in-arm is fairly commonplace for two men, certainly for anyone as close and with as much history as they have, and this is only one small step further than that. Not to mention the fact that they were lovers at the very least back before Baz Fell, which they have never fully discussed since that night in Norway centuries ago. This isn’t inherently anything romantic, but knowing Baz and knowing their relationship, he can’t help but feel like it is, especially with Baz looking as perfect and unreal as he always does. 

That might be a demon thing, looking gorgeous all the time while in human forms. Might help with tempting, or something. It also might just be a Baz thing.

“I love Paris,” Baz sighs as they walk, “It’s such a shame that the whole Revolution is making everything so tense. I mean, it’s all well and good in terms of, like, the running of the country, and _ great _for everyone’s opinion of my ability Downstairs, but I’m going to have to stay away until it all simmers down with the people hating the aristocracy.”

“Why stay away?” 

“Because I have _ standards _when it comes to my clothes, Simon, and I don’t particularly want to get thrown in the Bastille for wearing clothes that make me look both attractive and important.”

“I guess that’s fair. I’ve never liked it very much, since I don’t speak much French. You probably speak half the languages of the world, knowing you.”

Baz tosses his hair over his shoulder and smiles cockily. “Mhm. English, French, Russian, Mandarin, a couple of African languages, Korean, Hindi, Arabic, Latin, and I can hold a simple conversation in a handful of others. _ Still _not Gaelic, though.”

“Oh my _ God. _ You’ve been busy.” Somehow the use of the Lord’s name in vain just slips off his tongue. Baz raises his eyebrows, but doesn’t comment on it. Simon doesn’t really know why Gaelic is such a point of frustration. “I’ve hardly left Europe, except for Egypt, Troy and the Terracotta Army incident, which I have to say put me _ right _off.” Baz laughs at that.

“Put you off the entire _ world _apart from Europe? How uncultured of you.”

“Well, I haven’t been to the Americas yet. Or Australia. Or most of Africa. I’m sure they’re fine. It’s just that I like Europe. We seem to bump into each other all the time, when we’re both in Europe. And I like seeing you.”

At that, Baz’s expression does something complicated involving a lot of blinking and the obvious suppression of a smile and the rise of colour to his cheeks, which is a delight to watch. Simon resolves to say _ more _ candid things in future.

“Well, you’re a _ nuisance, _ so maybe you should get out and see the world more if it means you won’t be in my hair so much,” Baz says, but there’s no bite to it. _ A couple of thousand years ago, that would have hurt, _ thinks Simon, _ but he can’t really insult me when he’s smiling at me like that. _ Exasperated fondness on Baz’s face looks foreign to Simon, but seeing it directed at him is rather nice.

They reach the edge of the gardens, where the path meets the big driveway full of carriages. A driver waves to Baz, and he detaches himself from Simon, who instantly misses him.

“I suppose this is us, then. It was nice to see you, angel.”

“You, too. Even if I am a nuisance,” Simon says, which gets a grin from Baz. One of his rare, full-demon-fangs-showing grins he seems to reserve for Simon. He doesn’t want him to leave. Just as Baz turns to walk away, Simon grabs his arm.

“What now?”

“I just wanted to tell you that, uh. That you looked beautiful tonight. And then handsome.”

“Are you saying I’m not beautiful like this?” Baz says, the teasing note back in his voice, but he’s gone even redder (as, undoubtedly, Simon has too). Simon starts to stammer out a response, but Baz cuts him off. “But thank you. You’re not so bad yourself.”

Simon, in a moment of courage, grasps Baz’s immaculately manicured and surprisingly soft hand and presses a kiss to it, just below his knuckles. _ Okay, maybe that was a little too far. _ He blinks hard, looks up at how Baz’s mouth has formed an _ o, _and drops it, standing up straight and adjusting his waistcoat simply for something to do. 

Baz clears his throat, walks past Simon, pauses, takes a step back. Places a kiss on his cheek. Simon could faint.

“See you around, Simon,” he says softly, and strides to his carriage, running a hand through his hair.

Simon turns to watch him leave, and begins to wrap his head around what the _ hell _just happened.

** _london, england, 1851 AD_ **

The Crystal Palace housing the Great Exhibition stands proud in Hyde Park, and Baz fits in perfectly there.

He’s dressed like a dandy in a sharp waistcoat, his hair shorter than ever and shoes polished so shiny he can see his face in them. He’s found that the hustle and bustle of the Exhibition is somewhere he can blend into a crowd, subtly influence people towards evil (or just mischief, in the case of the three small boys he encouraged to throw eggs at the walls a few days previously) without being interrogated.

The streets of London are so noisy that he can’t think. The Industrial Revolution has filled the air with soot and turned white trees black. The sky is always cloudy, the Thames is so filthy that it makes the poor children sick, and Baz is wholeheartedly and intensely lonely.

He hasn’t made a habit of befriending humans. Sure, he’s spoken to thousands of them, but never gotten attached. Seeing how losing those he’s gotten close to has devastated Simon over the years was a cautionary tale for him.

The unfortunate side effect of this is that when he doesn’t see Simon for a while, he has absolutely nobody except for the other demons (none of whom he speaks to voluntarily) and the veritable dynasty of cats he’s owned, but they don’t really make up for the utter lack of companionship. 

Now, it’s evening. Most of the people who had visited this morning have long gone home to their families. In fact, the exhibition has been closed for over an hour, but Baz just didn’t leave, and the guards all suddenly had something urgent to see to when they were about to escort him out. It’s not like he’s going to _ do _anything, anyway.

There’s too many beautiful and innovative things in the building to count, but Baz has been drawn back to one of them every time he’s come. 

There’s a tapestry, woven in the most vivid gold. The details are in white and palest blue, and it’s an angel standing in a ray of sunlight. The angel isn’t anyone in particular he recognises, but he has the blonde hair and white clothing and the sword, and it’s been ten years since Baz has spoken to Simon, and he’s seeing him everywhere. 

He sinks to the floor, back against a wall, and looks up at it. His hands are clasped in his lap, as if in prayer. He’s still drowsy from a rather long time spent sleeping. He blinks slowly, catlike, and stares up at the shifting threads.

“It’s all beautiful, isn’t it,” says a soft and familiar voice. Baz startles, suddenly awake and standing and turning and it’s _ Simon. _“Sorry. I didn’t want to make you jump. You looked so peaceful.”

“Not peaceful. Tired. Melancholy.”

“It’s been too long, Baz,” says Simon, and Baz lets himself smile. “Where have you been? I got used to hearing from you all the time, and then all of a sudden you just stopped answering my letters.”

“I was asleep.”

“_ Asleep? _Like, you just took a nap for ten years?”

“The better part of twenty, actually. Just woke up when I got a letter and went back to sleep, for the first nine years or so.”

Simon looks absolutely baffled.

“But _ why?” _

“It’s going to sound stupid, but there was this absolutely spectacular meteor shower in ‘33. And it just reminded me very suddenly of what it was like before I Fell, got sad, took a nap, here we are.”

“Oh, so like what you did with the Library of Alexandria.“ Simon nods like this is a perfectly good explanation. “I hope you know that I missed you.”

“I do know. I could feel it. You came to London for this exhibition, and an angel’s sadness is apparently powerful enough to wake me.” Baz takes a step towards Simon. “I missed you, too. I think we got a bit too happy living in each other’s pockets.”

“And that’s a bad thing?” 

“Well, our respective people probably don’t like it very much,” Baz laments, and Simon brightens.

“That reminds me! Upstairs has all but cut off contact with me, which I’m so not complaining about because without a specific assignment I can basically do what I want as long as it’s not clearly evil.”

“That… is probably something you should worry about?”

“Oh definitely, but I am choosing to ignore it and enjoy some time off,” Simon says jovially, and walks a bit closer to Baz. “Fancy going somewhere with me? Like, somewhere with plenty of sun and clean air. Like, Sicily or the Galapagos or something.”

He _ should _ say no. This won’t end well for him. He, unlike Simon apparently, actually has to do his job, though he supposes nothing is stopping him from just doing his job wherever they go. He also knows that spending evenings together tends to end with silent, charged eye contact after their hands brush and then one of them getting up abruptly with some excuse like ‘ _ oh it’s getting late’ _ or ‘ _ I won’t keep you any longer see you next week’ _. 

“Absolutely. I need a break from London.”

And so, they go.

Long-distance teleportation is exhausting and dangerous, so they travel to Sicily the human way, in a carriage (driven notably by the great-grandson of the driver who picked Baz up from the ball in Paris) across Europe and then a ship, and they stay in Sicily for three glorious months before Baz gets told he has to go and check up on the New Zealand Wars, and he has to tear himself away.

“Listen, Baz,” Simon says as he opens the door to Baz’s carriage for him. “Don’t go silent on me again. Next time, maybe, instead of sleeping for decades, just come and talk to me about whatever happens, alright?”

He’s so earnest and insistent that Baz can’t bring himself to make a snarky comment.

“Of course, angel. I’ll see you soon.” The carriage door closes, and the driver urges the horses onto the road which will take him to the port. He turns to wave out the window, like the humans do, and Simon smiles, and then they turn the corner and he’s gone.

** _new york city, usa, 1969 AD_ **

Baz and Simon aren’t _ drunk, _exactly.

They’re just on the warm side of tipsy, Simon having been drinking cider and Baz sipping on his cocktails for the better part of two hours, and it’s not even eleven o’clock yet. 

They bumped into each other somewhere innocuous, as usual, though Baz has his doubts that Simon isn’t using his ethereal abilities to find him. After all, NYC is a big city, in a big country, in a big world, and it would be a rather convenient coincidence for them to have found each other purely by chance.

Baz didn’t want to complain. Of course, he did anyway, making some offhand comment about how Simon ‘has his nose in everyone’s business’ and ‘can’t you let me do my job in _ peace, _angel’, but Simon just laughed it off and asked if he wanted to get a drink somewhere and catch up on the last few years.

They had ended up slipping into an establishment Simon said he was ‘fairly sure was a gay bar’ and which Baz was _ certain _was a gay bar. It was full of couples dancing close, people drinking at the bar, people in drag. Simon had taken the opportunity to get them drinks when they arrived, leaving Baz leaning against the wall at the side of the room, feeling slightly out-of-place.

A man had approached him, even taller than Baz is, and run a muscular arm through his hair, saying something about how hot he is and ‘_ can I buy you a drink’ _, but before Baz could tell him he wasn’t interested, Simon came back, pushing through the crowd with two drinks in his hands. 

“Hey, angel,” Baz had greeted him, and shot him a look, and Simon had obligingly handed him a drink and wrapped an arm around his waist.

“Who’s this, babe?” Simon said, giving the man a pointed glance, and he had left promptly. Simon had taken his arm away, leaving Baz feeling a little cold despite the heat of the room.

“Thanks. He was _ so _not my type.”

“What _ is _your type, even? You say that about literally everyone.”

“I don’t know, really. Not him, anyway. But I think the two of us are rather a lot of people in here’s type, based on the looks we’re getting.” 

“We keeping up the couple act, then? Let them know they don’t have a chance?”

“Yeah, we should.” What Baz _ wants _ to say is _ yes, please, let me at least pretend that I’m yours and you’re mine, let them all be jealous. _ “I suppose you're not the _ worst _ person to pretend to be with, and we _ would _make a rather striking couple, since you’re passably attractive and I’m gorgeous.”

“Oh, come off it, you think I’m fit.”

“In your dreams, _ mon ange. _Now, c’mon, let’s go and get blitzed.”

And so, they do. Almost. They have wound up sitting close together at the bar and talking, Simon half-slumped against Baz, commenting on the interesting people and the decor and anything else that came to mind.

“You know,” Simon says, “This place is different to anywhere we’ve ever been. And we’ve been to a _ lot _of pubs and restaurants and diners and—”

“That’s ‘cause there aren’t many places with policies like this one, or where you can come and be with someone of the same sex, so the gay community of Manhattan comes here. The Stonewall Inn is _ infamous _in the right circles.”

Simon hums at that, nodding his head and sighing. “Gay people have had it _ rough, _haven’t they. You ever wish we could’ve done something to help them?”

“We’ve done a _ bit. _For certain individuals. Like, remember, at Troy? With Achilles and—”

“_ Patroclus, _yeah! Thinking about them still makes me a bit weepy sometimes. Y’know, the humans say that what’s-her-face the nymph, Achilles’ mum…” He trails off.

“Thetis?” Baz fills in helpfully.

“_ Thetis, _ yeah! They say that she was the one to write Patroclus’ name on the grave. But we know that it was _ us!” _On that last word, Simon practically shouts and extends a triumphant arm in the air.

“_ Yeah _it was! I hope the two of them are doing alright, wherever they went. Heaven, maybe. Or Elysium, since they were Hellenic polytheists. Whichever. I don’t know how it works, I’m not an angel.”

“I’m an angel, and I still don’t know Upstairs’ thing on different religions.”

“Yeah, but you’re _ you. _ Maybe one of the archangels or… whatever, the other important ones, would know. Anyway.” Baz raises his drink, and Simon follows suit. “To Achilles and Patroclus!” He clinks their drinks together, and a man sitting near them at the bar who must have overheard says ‘ _ hell yeah!’ _. Simon high-fives him. 

A little later, once they’ve finished their drinks and their conversation has quieted, Simon stands up with a start that makes Baz jump a little.

“Come on, Baz,” he says, “Let’s dance.”

“Simon, you’re terrible at dancing.”

“Yeah, but this isn’t _ dancing _dancing. It’s more like just kind of grinding and bopping a bit.”

“Please never say _ grinding. _ Or _ bopping.” _

“Alright, but please? It’ll be fun.” When Baz still shakes his head, Simon just starts saying “Please please please please—”

“Agh, _ fine. _Try not to step on my feet, alright?”

Simon grins (which pretty much makes up for any dance-related injuries this may cause) and takes Baz’s hands, leading him to the dancefloor and tugging him close, so they’re pressed together chest-to-toe.

“They think we’re boyfriends, remember?” Simon whispers in Baz’s ear, his voice so low it could be described as _ husky _ and in such a way that _ surely he must be doing this on purpose _, and Baz is suddenly lost for words as Simon laces his fingers together around Baz’s shoulders and neck.

It _ should _ be too warm, and sticky and uncomfortable, but Simon is looking up at him with _ something _in those blue eyes, and when Baz makes eye contact, he almost has to take a step back so he doesn’t fall from the force of it.

He thinks it’s an angel thing, but whenever they’re like this or they’re drunk and their emotions are high, there always seems to be a great golden wave of emotions flooding over him that aren’t his own, and his traitor of a brain won’t stop wondering if this is what angelic love feels like, because he hasn’t felt that in its purest, most undiluted form since he Fell and he can hardly remember the joy of it.

They’re surrounded by people wrapped up in each other, and as Simon almost trips when someone bumps into him, he leans even closer to Baz and his lips are _ right there _ and Baz’s breath catches on the inhale as Simon’s gaze flickers to his _ own _lips.

“Simon…” Baz says, embarrassingly breathless, sure his face is bright red, but Simon doesn’t let him finish the thought.

“Oh, _ fuck _ pretending,” Simon says with more passion than Baz has ever heard in his voice, and Baz hasn’t heard him swear for over a thousand years, and kisses him.

And _ oh, _ they’re kissing, and the noise around them suddenly sounds muffled, and all Baz can think is _ finally. _

It takes Simon pulling away for Baz to realise that he isn’t kissing back, and his mind still has the thought capacity of approximately a puddle.

“Look, I’m—I’m sorry, we can—” Simon tries to say, but this time Baz cuts _ him _ off, yanking him back in by the lapels of his shirt and capturing his lips again, and he can feel Simon sighing into the kiss, and he can’t muffle a desperate sound from the back of his throat.

_ So this is what kissing an angel feels like, _ he thinks distantly. _ It’s been six thousand years, and every fantasy I’ve ever had could never have lived up to this. _

Simon’s fingers have found themselves in Baz’s soft hair, and when Baz tugs at his lip with his demon-sharp teeth he _ pulls, _and Baz’s knees almost buckle.

_ “Baz, _” Simon gasps out between kisses, “Can we get out of here?”

“Yes, yeah, let’s go,” Baz says, and with Simon still practically attached to him they walk through the doors and into the cold night air. Baz takes a couple of steps away from Simon once they’re outside, and he pouts. “Sorry, angel, I know, but people aren’t exactly nice about two men partaking in PDA outside of the Stonewall, so.”

“Well, then, let’s hurry up and get where we’re going.”

“I believe a room has just become open at a hotel on the next block?”

“Perfect, that’s great, now let’s _ go _ because I really want to be kissing you right now and I’m _ not. _”

Just hearing those words from Simon makes Baz’s breath catch in his chest, so he starts walking as instructed, and paying for their room happens miraculously quickly and unquestioned.

Something _ else _ that’s miraculous is Baz managing to keep his hands off Simon in the elevator. His mind apparently has two settings in this the most _ new _ of situations: utter silence and unstoppable racing, and now it’s the latter because Simon won’t tear his eyes off him and it feels so good to be _ wanted _, to want someone and to be able to have them.

Baz has a necklace on which he’d taken a liking to and bought a hundred years ago. It’s a silver pendant, long enough to tuck under whatever shirt he’s wearing, and Simon tugs him into their hotel room with it and then closes the door gently, which is admirable because Baz would’ve slammed it to get them truly alone as soon as possible.

But the almost violent urgency is back immediately, because as soon as the door’s closed Simon’s mouth is on him and his back is pressed against the wall, his breath coming in pants, wondering how Simon isn’t burning with the sheer fire of it all, thanking _ someone _ that there wasn’t some kind of curse preventing angels and demons from touching because _ how did he ever live before this _?

“I’ve wanted this for—for _ so long, _you don’t even know,” Baz says, tugging Simon’s shirt off with shaking hands. He isn’t sure how he let himself say that. Normally he tries not to be vulnerable, but he wants to bare his soul right now almost as much as he wants to bare Simon’s skin.

Simon doesn’t respond, and that’s okay, Baz didn’t expect him to. He’s been pushed down on the bed, finally, and both of their clothes have been sent who-knows-where, and Simon’s mouth is otherwise occupied.

Baz is fairly sure he’ll be discorporated if he looks down, sees Simon there with his mouth on him and so, so happy about it. He’s already unsure that he isn’t going to catch fire, or be melted à la the effects of holy water, just from this.

He’s also half-expecting to wake up with a start to his empty bed, hot under the collar and more desperate for Simon than he was at the Great Exhibition. It wouldn’t be the first time he’s had a dream which went rather a lot like this.

But he doesn’t, he doesn’t snap out of a dream because _ oh my God-Satan-someone this is really happening, _ and neither of them would stop for all the money or _ commendations _in the world. 

And so they don’t stop, and Baz can’t stop _ thinking, _ even if he wants to let himself live in the moment and just enjoy every slow thrust, every choked-out gasp. He feels desperate and vital, like he has to capture everything, placing soft kisses on every part of Simon he can reach like he’s cataloguing him so he’ll never forget, just in case this never happens again. Because they’re both a little tipsy (though most of the alcoholic haze is long gone) and Baz has to entertain the thought that this might be just _ one time _and then everything will go back to chaste hand kisses and awkward compliments.

He’s fumbling and uncertain the whole time, despite having slept with plenty of people in his lifetime (being a demon calls for it on occasion), and Simon is too, but it’s okay because it’s _ them _and they know each other so well and they’ve been together for thousands of years. To anyone else who might have known the two of them, it’s probably very surprising that they’ve never even come close to doing this.

Baz draws himself out of his head for a few minutes as Simon muffles a moan by sinking his teeth into the tendon between Baz’s neck and shoulder.

“Always thought I’d—_ ohshit right there— _ be the biter, angel,” Baz manages, a smile on his face despite himself.

“Shh,” Simon says, with a matching flustered grin, and Baz complies, pulling Simon back up to kiss him. 

The kiss isn’t anything close to pretty, both of their mouths open and hungry and hands running everywhere, over chests and thighs and backs, marveling at as-yet-untouched skin.

Simon’s movements become stuttering and uneven, his legs trembling.

“Baz, _ babe, _I’m gonna—”

“I know, I know, sweetheart, I’m right there with you,” Baz says, because he _ is _ and they’ve barely lasted fifteen minutes, like human teenagers. Maybe that’s just their effect on each other. He’ll process ‘babe’ and ‘sweetheart’ at some later date.

Simon fumbles for his hand and squeezes it, blunt nails sinking crescent-moon dents into Baz’s skin.

And then he comes, and there it is again, the golden-shining light rolling over him like a wave in a hurricane, filling his senses with nothing but _Simon _and _joy _and _maybe love _and he’s choking out some kind of noise which is part-moan and part-scream and definitely not human. His body shakes with his own climax, and the light fades, leaving just a tingling sensation on his skin.

His heartbeat, hitherto unnecessary (since Baz isn’t human, none of his vitals are technically _ vital _), slowly returns to normal, and Baz can’t help but laugh airily as Simon rolls off him to lay beside him, still clutching his hand and breathing heavily. Simon is grinning sleepily, blinking slowly like a cat.

“Well,” Simon says, “That was, uh.”

“Something we should have anticipated happening long ago?”

“Oh, definitely.” Despite his apparent relaxation, Baz can see in his muscles and tendons (which he can _ openly admire, _holy shit) that he is lying stiffly, not sure what to do or what to say next.

And then _ Baz _ gets to thinking again, and suddenly he understands why, and all of the happy post-orgasm jelly his muscles had melted into ceases to exist. _ What if this changes everything? What if this _ doesn’t _ change anything? Where do we go from here? _

Baz looks over at Simon to see him unabashedly staring, the flush still in his cheeks. He meets his eyes, and it feels wrong to do anything loudly.

“So. What does this—what are we doing, what do we do now?” Baz murmurs. Simon reaches over to him, running the slightly-rough pads of his fingers down Baz’s sides, making him shiver.

“I mean, things don’t have to change between us, or be weird, or anything. They can— I mean, we might get in trouble for this, so we can be normal, I guess. We both had a few drinks.” 

Of _ course, _ Simon wants things to go back to normal, back to awkwardly flirting a bit every couple of years and saving each other’s asses and Baz trying to slip thinly-veiled love confessions into snarky comments. Why would he want that, when they’ve just _ proven _ that making out and using damned _ pet names _and having sex feels more natural than any ‘evil’ deeds Baz has ever undertaken in his whole life?

“Right. Plausible deniability, in case your lot Upstairs has something to say. Or if you decide you’d rather pretend this never happened, like you apparently want to.” Baz says icily, and maybe it’s a _ little _harsh and unnecessarily dramatic, but it feels like the only way. He watches the warm expression in Simon’s eyes fade, feels his hand pull away like he’s been burned, and it breaks his heart just a little bit.

What is that human expression? _ Cutting off your nose to spite your face? _

“Baz, no, you know that’s not what I meant, _ honestly _ ,” Simon starts saying, and maybe Baz should listen to him, but rather a lot of his _ bitter, twisted and vindictive _streak is coming through, and he doesn’t want to hear it. He gets out of the bed, wincing a little as he stands up, trying not to let tears spring to his eyes.

He starts pulling on his clothes, but he doesn’t want to spend much longer in this room which not _ five minutes ago _ was full of love and affection (and a healthy amount of lust, too, Baz is a _ demon _after all), so he snaps his fingers and he’s fully dressed and stepping out of the door. He’s still processing what the hell just happened, and why he said what he said, and how he can still feel Simon’s hands on him, and he doesn’t know what to do with it all.

Baz steps out into the cold night air, intending to use the last of his energy to teleport himself to his flat on the other side of Manhattan, but as he walks back in the direction of the Stonewall, he hears a loud bang and shouting, and breaks into a run, especially as he hears Simon behind him shouting at him to wait.

When he makes it back to the inn, he takes a second to take in the scene. There’s policemen pulling patrons into cars, using so much unnecessary force that Baz almost feels it himself when a tall, handsome woman in a sharp suit is shoved to the ground, visibly bleeding from the head.

Simon catches up to him, whispers a disbelieving ‘_ oh my God,’ _ under his breath, and yet again Baz doesn’t question his blasphemy.

The woman manages to get out of a police car, turning to the hesitant crowd and shouting, with more passion than Baz has ever seen, “_ Why don’t you do something? _”

Suddenly, the police raid turns into a _ riot, _and there’s bricks and punches being thrown. Baz can feel the sheer anger of it all the way down to his bones, the long-held frustration and tension finally coming to a breaking point. It feels like the end of something which cannot be put into words, the beginning of inevitable change at long, long last. Baz has to take a step back, his chest feeling like it might burst. 

Baz turns to Simon with a stony face and fire in his eyes. “We said before that we wished we had helped in the past. Now is the time to make up for it. We can talk about this—” Baz gestures between him and Simon “—later.” Baz breaks into a run, shoving some police officers to the side.

“I’m holding you to that,” Simon shouts, and follows him into the mob.

** _los angeles, usa, 2007 AD_ **

They don’t talk about what happened that night. Or at all, really, for almost forty years.

When mobile phones were invented, Simon tried and tried to find Baz’s number from somewhere, but he never could. Neither of them had called their Arrangement into use, neither of them had gotten grievously injured or into danger so severe that they couldn’t get themselves out of it with a few miracles. They hadn’t semi-coincidentally bumped into each other.

Decades had gone by. Music genres and technology had come and gone, fashions had changed (some of which Simon was _ dying _ to see Baz in— 70s rocker leather jackets and jeans would have been _ very _ striking on him, and Simon can just _ imagine _Baz singing along with Freddie Mercury), international crises and societal revolutions, such as the one that Simon and Baz had witnessed the true beginning of at Stonewall that fateful night, had rocked the world.

It certainly wasn’t the longest they had ever gone without seeing each other, but every year that passed felt longer than the one before it and Simon kept seeing Baz in every dark-haired man he passed, because he missed him more than he knew how to handle.

Missing Baz before was in the background, something he’d dwell on occasionally. Now, it’s at the forefront of his mind because they’d finally done something about the literal thousands of years of built up romantic and sexual tension between them, and then Baz had walked out and Simon thinks he knows why.

When he’d said ‘_ things don’t have to change’ _ (phrasing he regrets every day) he hadn’t meant anything even in the vicinity of ‘ _ let’s forget this happened.’ _ It was, of course, intended to be more like ‘ _ I’m not going anywhere, you don’t have to worry about things changing for the worse, it’s going to be better.’ _

So, he truly doesn’t expect to see Baz in the most human of places— a shopping mall.

Simon wasn’t there for a heavenly purpose. Technically he was shopping, and visiting the food court. He should’ve anticipated seeing Baz walk out of a Hot Topic.

He does a double-take, because _ of course _ Baz is dressed in a band t-shirt and ripped skinny jeans that are more _ ripped _ than _ skinny jeans, _and his hair is choppy and short like he cut it himself. Simon can see even from a hundred metres away that his nails are painted black. Baz had often tried to follow some kind of trend with his clothes throughout history, so Simon supposes he shouldn’t be surprised that he’d picked emo this time around.

Simon steels his nerves, and strides over to him, grabbing his shoulder. “_ Baz.” _

“Oh, hey, Simon,” Baz says boredly when he turns around, almost absently, then suddenly straightens and inhales sharply. “Hi. Um.”

Simon has nearly never seen Baz at a loss for words, but he stands silently and looks him up and down. 

“What are you doing here?” Baz manages eventually.

“Just kind of walking. Maybe I somehow knew you’d be here. And you?”

“Shopping. Can we— can we go somewhere?”

“Yeah. Definitely.”

As soon as they’re around the corner, outside the mall, where nobody can see them, Simon throws his arms around Baz’s shoulders and pulls him into a hug so tight that it forces a breath out of him, and thankfully Baz reciprocates, his long arms looping around Simon’s waist.

“I don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t this,” Baz murmurs, “Kind of thought you’d slap me in the face or something. Or smite me.”

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m _ so mad at you, _ but I also missed you a lot, so. And I’d never hurt you, you know that,” Simon says as he pulls away, straightening his shirt and taking a deep breath. “Okay, angry time: why the _ hell _have you avoided me for forty years, Tyrannus?”

“Don’t call me Tyrannus.”

“No, you deserve it. We finally, _ finally _ actually did something after _ six thousand damn years, _and then you just put words in my mouth and decided to leave? What on Earth was going through your head?”

Baz rises to it. “I don’t know, Simon, maybe how you just brushed it off and immediately started thinking of ways to cover it up? Have you never stopped to think about how that made _ me _feel? I’m a demon, I’m always going to end up in the wrong in that situation, and you just started—”

“What did I literally just say about putting words in my mouth? That wasn’t what I was saying. Honestly, just think about it.”

“It certainly came off that way to me.”

“No. _ No. _ Listen, every single day since then I’ve regretted the way I said that, but I wish you’d listened to me when I _ instantly _tried to explain. We’ve both messed up, but now I’ve finally found you again.”

“You never said, though— what do you want, what is it about me, about that night, that you miss so much? It was just sex, it’s not like we said anything, or there were any great confessions, or any of that kind of thing. I really need to know.”

“Baz, I think somehow you haven’t realised that I love you. That’s what I’ve wanted to say.”

“You’re an angel, you love everything,” Baz says, voice hard, dismissive. It’s not something Simon likes to hear. 

“Didn’t you once tell me about the six ways the Greeks described love?”

“That was a thousand years ago. I’m surprised you remember.”

“Well, I do, I’d remember everything if you said it to me, and I think I know the difference between _ agape _ and _ eros. _ ” Baz just kind of chokes out an _ oh, _running a hand through his hair (which Simon realises is dyed at the ends.) “Did you really not know?”

“Angel, some of us can’t feel love. We need to be _ told. _”

“Oh. _ Oh. _Right. Yeah. Well, Baz, I love you. More than I know how to handle. More than I probably should.” Simon takes Baz’s hands in his, suddenly hesitant. “Do you, uh, feel the same, or—”

“I love you, too.” Baz manages, and Simon takes a step towards him, needing to hold on to him, to ground himself. Baz’s eyes fall closed, and Simon simultaneously felt incredibly unsettled and more warm than he should, at seeing him so vulnerable. “But won’t you get in trouble with your people Upstairs?”

“I don’t care. Stop trying to talk me out of this,” Simon says, cutting off his own sentence by tilting his head just a little to the side and tugging Baz into a long-awaited kiss, and suddenly everything seemed to be right again.

Baz _ sighs _ into it, letting his arms wrap around Simon’s torso and pulling him closer as Simon slips his hands into the back pockets of Baz’s ridiculously tight jeans, and _ oh, _this is it. It’s not a movie kiss, though they never expected it to be, but it’s so perfect that Simon almost has to break the kiss to grin.

Baz pulls away for a second to take a breath, pressing their foreheads together and smiling, so close that the whole line of his body is pressed against Simon’s.

“Are you staying somewhere?” Baz says a little breathlessly, “Because there are some things I’d really like to be doing and we can’t do them here.”

“No, but I think I have the energy to get us back to my place in London,” Simon says. “Let’s go home.”

\--

It’s not until much later that day, when they’re lying close and unclothed in Simon’s bed, that they actually carry on talking.

“So, how long?” Simon asks, a whisper, so as not to break the tranquility of the warmly dark room.

“How long what?”

“How long have you known? That you loved me, I mean.”

Baz thinks for a moment. “I think I had a feeling at Troy. When Patroclus died and you just held me for hours without complaining, even though we didn’t know each other that well. But I definitely knew that night in Norway, when you remembered us before.”

“Yeah, I think knowing we were together before you Fell was the thing that slapped me in the face, like, _ hey idiot, you maybe care about this guy too much. _” Baz snorts.

“Technically, I’m not a guy, angel.”

“Guy-shaped entity. You were quite happy to be a guy twenty minutes ago, if I’m not wrong—”

“Shut _ up, _that doesn’t even make sense. You didn’t finish answering the question.”

“So, yeah, Norway. But then at that party in Paris, I kind of realised that I like you romantically in the present tense as well as before you Fell.”

“And then you kissed my hand and made me almost faint like a maiden. Honestly, that coach driver was a _ saint, _he had to listen to me talk about that for half an hour straight.”

Simon chuckles, and Baz can feel it, his head cushioned on Simon’s torso. Simon glances down to look at him, and practically feels his chest fill with warmth. _ How did I go without this, _ he thinks. And then, _ I would face Heaven and Hell rather than give this up. _

Baz takes a shallow, shaky breath.

“What is it?”

“It’s just that when you look at me like that, I get all… I don’t know how to describe it, it’s like a wave rushing over me, and I can almost see myself the way you see me.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s angelic love. How long for?”

“The first time was— do you remember, during the Roman occupation of England, when you saved me and then we got a bit tipsy and emotional? Yeah, it was then.”

“Oh.” Simon is quiet for a while, then says “What do you mean by _ see you the way I see you _?”

“It’s hard to explain, but it’s like for a moment I can feel all the things you feel about me in a great rush of emotions. It’s extremely validating, I like it.”

Simon laughs again, and Baz sits up and shifts up the bed a little, leaning down to kiss the smile from his mouth.

“I love you,” Baz murmurs against his lips.

“So you’ve told me, repeatedly, all evening.” It was like a dam had burst, like once Baz had managed to say it once he couldn’t stop.

“Are you complaining?”

“No. I love you too.”

“I’m going to say it over and over until I wear it out or you get sick of me, you do realise? I love you.”

“If you think I’d get sick of you now, when we’ve only just started doing _ this—” _Simon slides his fingertips down Baz’s chest to his hips and pulls him so he’s fully sitting on his thighs, “—then you’re dead wrong.”

“Oh, in it for the sex, I see how it is,” Baz teases, but his voice trails off into a litany of quiet gasps as Simon leans in to kiss his neck and trails his hand a little lower.

“‘Love you,” Simon says, again.

“I love you.”

“I love you, and I’ve finally got you now, and I’m never letting go.”

** _watford, england, 2019 AD (epilogue)_ **

It makes some kind of sense, that when they finally make it to their happy ending, they’d have a garden.

After a rather complicated and convoluted series of events involving rather a lot of holy water and a number of strongly worded letters, Heaven and Hell finally decided to just let Simon and Baz be. Simon never really got an explanation as to why they cut off contact with him back in the nineteenth century, but it certainly made things easier. Baz, on the other hand, had to argue down and threaten the Duke of Hell, Beelzebub, in an incredibly tense three days which Simon spent pacing a hole into the carpet.

Once they were free to do what they pleased, Baz raised the idea of moving out of London in favour of somewhere smaller and quieter. They’d found a cottage in Watford with plenty of space for Baz’s books, a kitchen big enough for all of Simon’s culinary attempts (equal parts successful and unsuccessful). It even had a nice conservatory where Baz could play his violin, and Simon could listen from just about wherever he was in the house. It was _ perfect, _and they bought it and moved in in less than two days.

The house’s garden is big and full of flowers. An apple tree planted by the previous owners bears fruit every year, and Simon bakes more pies and crumbles and strudels than they can eat. They spend an afternoon one spring day trying to build a hammock, and end up just snapping their fingers and doing it in an instant after Baz pointed out that they were entirely capable of doing that.

After a few years, they manage to make a few human friends. Simon relies on the fact that they’ll move away before they notice that Simon and Baz have looked about twenty-five for far too long.

The nice couple next door, one of whom is almost certainly a witch, sometimes invite them over for dinner. The maybe-witch, a short and stunningly intelligent woman named Penny, and her husband Micah make absolutely delicious curries, and Simon regularly interrogates her for her recipes (which she still withholds). 

When the UK legalised same-sex marriage in 2014, Simon and Baz decided it would be in the spirit of things (and also the logical next step after a seven-year relationship and a six-thousand-year courtship) to get married the human way, even though technically speaking one of them could’ve changed form and they could’ve gotten married before. Simon had made an excellent point against this, however, which was ‘_ but that’s just not cricket, Baz!’ _

They didn’t know enough people, really, to have a proper ceremony. Baz had gotten halfway through writing invitations to Gabriel, Beelzebub and God purely out of spite before Simon stopped him by taking away his ‘fancy paper privileges’. They just invited Penny and Micah, and one or two other neighbours, and had their first dance to _ You’re My Best Friend _dressed in white suits, and it was absolutely perfect.

The deeds to their house, and their marriage certificate, framed on the wall and obtained with miraculously little investigation into their background, bears the names _ Simon Snow _ and _ Tyrannus Basilton Grimm-Pitch, _because go big or go home, right? 

Simon and Baz may or may not have changed the name of their wifi to _ ‘for the drama’ _ after they decided to make their human surnames literally _ white _ and _ black, _and Baz’s married name five words long.

Simon wears a silver ring, in the shape of a snake looping around his ring finger. Each morning, before they step into the shower, Baz gently pulls it off and places it in a little dish beside the sink along with his own ring, in the shape of gold angel wings. When he’s feeling especially sentimental in his sleepy haze, he’ll pull Simon’s hand to his lips and kiss the place where the ring usually sits. Then Simon will probably pull him in for a proper kiss, and things will escalate as they do.

They’ve both taken up a couple of hobbies, just to pass the time. Baz has his violin and his poems, Simon cooking and martial arts. They make friends, go out for lunch at little cafes, come home and drink hot chocolate with red cheeks and runny noses on cold days.

One warm spring afternoon, a couple they kind of know from down the street hosts a barbeque, and Simon manages to persuade Baz to come with him.

(“Oh, go on, Baz,” he had said, “I hear the lady two doors down is entirely unaware we’re married and _ definitely _thinks I’m some kind of eligible bachelor—”

“I’ll come.”)

Their back garden smells like jasmine and cooking meat, and it’s all rather more enjoyable than either of them had anticipated. Two girls of about fifteen, dressed in pin-covered leather jackets and ripped jeans, with chokers and dyed hair, try their best to imitate Baz for the entire evening, because he’s apparently a very specific kind of fashionable. He ends up talking to them about Panic! At The Disco for a solid half-hour while Simon entertains himself chatting with the hosts.

“How long have you two been together?” one of them, a woman named Trixie with spiky green hair and tattoos, asks him.

“Uh, twelve years now!”

“Woah, and you can’t be older than twenty-seven or so,” her wife Keris remarks, “High school sweethearts?”

Simon doesn’t really know what to say.

“Yeah, yeah. And you?”

It turns out the story of Trixie and Keris’ relationship is long and complicated, which they point out a number of times as they speak. Simon can’t help but think that theirs would put it to shame, but it’s not like he can tell them.

Simon looks over Trixie’s shoulder to see Baz sitting at a small picnic table, surrounded by more kids than the last time Simon saw him. The older ones have migrated away, and he seems to be regaling the littlies with stories, and they’re listening raptly. Simon looks at him warmly, feeling something in his chest swell, and Baz turns around almost on instinct, waving him over.

When he can get a word in, Simon quickly says “I think my husband wants me over there, but it was lovely to meet you both!” He quickly waves to them and awkwardly half-jogs over to Baz, perching himself on the table behind him.

“Hey, angel,” Baz says, pausing his sentence to reach up and kiss Simon on the cheek. “I’ve apparently been chosen as storyteller.”

“You _ are _ good at that. What’re you telling them about?”

“Some shenanigans I got up to at French court once.”

“Wait, really?”

“Don’t worry, they won’t know it’s true, they’re kids.”

A little girl tugs on Baz’s trouser leg, and he turns his attention back to them.

“Now, where was I?” He launches right back into a story involving Mary, Queen of Scots’ dress and a large bowl of soup, and he speaks with wide gestures, occasionally getting Simon to play a part, and it’s so not what Simon expected Baz to be like with kids that it makes him fall in love with him just a little more.

Later, as they walk home, Simon brings it up.

“You know, I didn’t think you’d be so good with kids,” Simon says quietly, hands in the pockets of his denim jacket.

“Neither did I, to be honest, but apparently they like me. And one of the mums there thanked me profusely afterwards for keeping her son out of her hair for a bit, so I guess that’s good?”

Simon just smiles at him, and reaches out to take his hand. Walking hand-in-hand makes him feel just a little bit like they’re human teenagers, or an old married couple (the latter of which is technically true), but it’s delightfully human to feel Baz’s cold hands warm in his, to feel his pulse in his wrist.

It’s quiet as the sun sets, and the few clouds cast the sky into orange and red and violet, just like they did from the Walls of Eden, just as they have for thousands of years. The sunset is one of a very small number of things which Simon has always seen, and always loved. The sunset, and Baz.

The air smells of flowers and the rain which fell that morning, and things finally draw to a golden close.

**Author's Note:**

> i hope you enjoyed! i actually learned a lot of historical fun facts from writing this like did you know mead was the first ever alcoholic drink????
> 
> i have a habit of making my fics have soft domestic endings i hope yall like that
> 
> also: this fic tips me over 100,000 words posted on ao3 which is insane
> 
> my tumblr is [galaxy-houseplants](https://galaxy-houseplants.tumblr.com) and my twitter is @hollyviolet05 if u wanna chat about snowbaz or good omens or whatever
> 
> kudos and comments fuel me and are super appreciated! pls shout at me if you spotted any glaring historical inaccuracies or other errors!
> 
> thanks so much for reading :)


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